Smart size reduction of a local electronic mailbox by removing unimportant messages based on an automatically generated user interest profile

ABSTRACT

A system that enables a user to conveniently reduce the size of one or more mailboxes stored on the client computer system. The user can indicate that “unimportant” email messages are to be removed from one or more mailboxes. Unimportant email messages are automatically removed before important ones. To calculate the importance of a message for a given user, message attributes such as users associated with and/or terms contained in the message are compared against a personal interest profile associated with the local user. Additionally, dates associated with the message, such as when the message was added to the mailbox, and/or when the message was last read, may be used to further determine message importance. The size of a message may also be considered when determining whether a message should be removed.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to electronic mail systems, andmore specifically to a system and method for smart size reduction of alocal electronic mailbox based on a user's interest profile.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Electronic mail (“email”) systems typically include one or more“mailbox” containers. Common mailboxes in existing systems include an“Inbox” mailbox for storing received messages, an “Outbox” for storingmessages that are to be sent, a “Sent Items” mail box for storingmessages that have been sent, a “Deleted Items” mailbox for storingmessages that have been deleted, and others that may be system definedor defined by the user as “folders” to organize messages as needed. Atany given point in time, each mailbox may contain many individualelectronic mail messages. Some existing email systems operate by forminglocal replicas of a user's mailboxes on the client computer system,based on stored copies of the messages on a server system. A problem mayoccur in these systems because a significant amount of disk space may beused on the client system as the local mailbox replicas increase insize. Accordingly, a local mailbox may have an associated size limitthat cannot be exceeded. In order to meet such size limits, and togenerally reduce the sizes of local mailboxes, there are differentthings a user can do through existing systems, each of which havecertain disadvantages.

First, a user can simply delete certain email messages from theirmailbox manually. Unfortunately, this manual approach of may take asignificant amount of user time to perform. Second, in some existingsystems, a user can define mailbox replication settings causing theemail system to remove documents that have not been modified over someperiod of time. This approach has the disadvantage that it typicallyremoves documents indiscriminately with regard to their importance. As aresult, messages may be removed that are important to the user, such asthose that may have only recently been read. Finally, archivingmechanisms on some systems allow a user to make explicit definitions ofselection statements identifying documents to be archived by transfer toa server system remote from the client. These systems enable a user toindicate a maximum message age above which messages should be archived.For example, some systems allow a user to manually enter an archivesetting specifically indicating that only documents from person ‘x’ thatare older than ninety days are to be remotely archived. However, suchmanual systems require the local user to continually modify such archivesettings to reflect the user's current message archiving needs. Inaddition, users may not have sufficient time to create and maintain suchmanual archive settings as their work assignments or roles change,resulting in new message archiving needs. Moreover, it is important tocarefully determine which messages are to be archived, since after adocument is moved to a remote archive, it becomes more difficult toaccess. Full text searches, sorting, and other features may not work onarchived documents. Archives themselves may be difficult for the user tolocate. These archiving systems do not automatically determineinformation regarding which other users and which terms are importantfor a given user of the client system, and accordingly cannot make useof such information in selecting messages to be archived.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

To address the above described and other shortcomings of the prior art,a method and system are disclosed that enable a user to convenientlyreduce the size of one or more mailboxes locally stored on a clientcomputer system. In the disclosed system, a user can indicate generallythat unimportant email messages are to be removed from one or moremailboxes prior to important ones. For example, this may be accomplishedthrough a replication setting available to the user indicating that theemail system should reduce the size of one or more local mailboxreplicas by removing unimportant messages. When the user selects orenters this setting, the underlying email system operates toautomatically determine which messages are important to the local user,and may delete some number of messages that are relatively unimportant.Alternatively, the user may enter or select a setting that causes theemail system to archive some number of relatively unimportant messagesto a remote server system.

The disclosed system operates to automatically delete or archiveunimportant email messages while keeping important messages locallyavailable for convenient access. To automatically calculate theimportance of a given email message, various message attributes may beused. These attributes include the identity of users and/or termsassociated with a message, such as senders and/or receivers of amessage, and/or terms contained within the message. Such messageattributes are automatically compared with the contents of a personalinterest profile automatically maintained for the local user. Thepersonal interest profile contains identifiers of persons that areautomatically determined as important to the local user, and/or keywordsthat are also automatically determined to be important to the localuser. Other message attributes may additionally be used to determinemessage importance for mailbox size reduction purposes, such as the timeat which a message was added to a mailbox, when a message was last read,and/or the size of a message. In one embodiment, the disclosed systememploys replication adapter software on the client computer system toremove unimportant email messages. Alternatively another type ofsoftware task or thread may used in this regard.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to facilitate a fuller understanding of the present invention,reference is now made to the appended drawings. These drawings shouldnot be construed as limiting the present invention, but are intended tobe exemplary only.

FIG. 1 shows software components in an illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 2 shows steps performed in the illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 3 is an example of a mailbox replication user settings dialog boxin an illustrative embodiment; and

FIG. 4 is an example of a mailbox archiving user settings dialog box inan illustrative embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

As shown in FIG. 1, an illustrative embodiment of the disclosed systemoperates using a number of software components executing on at least oneclient computer system, shown for purposes of illustration as the clientsystem 10, and at least one server computer system, shown for purposesof illustration as electronic mail (“email”) server system 30. Theclient system 10 and email server system 30 may, for example, eachinclude at least one processor, program storage, such as memory, forstoring program code executable on the processor, and one or moreinput/output devices and/or interfaces, such as data communicationand/or peripheral devices and/or interfaces. The client system 10 andemail server system 30 are communicably connected by a datacommunication system, such as a Local Area Network (LAN), the Internet,or the like. The client system 10 and email server system 30 may furtherinclude appropriate operating system software.

The client system 10 is shown including an email client softwarecomponent 12, and other communication application software 16. The othercommunication application 16 may, for example, be an instant messaging,internet telephony, or any other specific type of communicationapplication. An interest profile generator software component 18monitors operation of the email client component 12 and othercommunication application 16 to automatically generate the interestprofile 20. The interest profile 20 contains identifiers of other usersthat are automatically determined to be important to a local user of theclient system 10. The determination of which other users are importantto the local user may, for example, be based on which other users thelocal user has been in communication with through the email clientcomponent 12 and/or the other communication application 16. Another usermay be determined to be important to the local user if the local userhas been in relatively frequent communication with that other user,and/or if the local user has been in relatively recent communicationwith that other user. For example, another user may be determined to beimportant to the local user if the local user has communicated with thatuser within some predetermined period of time, or if the local user hascommunicated with that other user more recently than with other usersthat are determined to be relatively unimportant. Identifiers ofimportant other users may be read from and/or based on the contents ofan address book and/or buddy list found in the email client component 12and/or other communication application 16.

The interest profile 20 further may include some number of keywords thatare considered important to the local user of the client system 10. Thekeywords in the interest profile 20 may consist of words or phrasesdetermined based on the contents of communications between the localuser and other users through the email client component 12 and othercommunication application 16. For example, keywords in the interestprofile 20 may be words or phrases that occur relatively frequently insuch communications, or which occur in subject lines of suchcommunications, or any other words or phrases that are important to thelocal user.

A software component on the client system 10, shown for purposes ofillustration as the mailbox replication adapter component 22, operatesto reduce the size of one or more message mailboxes 24 associated withthe email client component 12. The message mailboxes 24 are softwarestructures containing email messages, such as those generally referredto in email applications as an “Inbox”, “Outbox”, “Sent Items”, othersystem defined mailboxes, user defined message folders, and/or any otherspecific type of electronic mail message mailbox. The mailbox sizereduction performed by the mailbox replication adapter 22 is based onthe contents of the interest profile 20.

In order to reduce the size of one or more of the message mailboxes 24,the mailbox replication adapter 22 operates to determine an importancelevel of each message in a mailbox. The importance level of a messagereflects message attributes, such as users associated with the message,including an identifier of a user that sent the message to the localuser, or an identifier of a user that received the message from thelocal user. If such users associated with a message match a useridentifier for an important user in the interest profile 20, then theassociated message may be determined to be relatively more importantthan another message that is associated with no such matching users.Similarly, if a message includes one or more terms or phrases matchingone or more of the keywords contained in the interest profile 20, thenthat message may be determined to be relatively more important thananother message containing no such, or fewer such, matching terms orphrases. Thus a message may be considered more important the morematches it has with user identifiers and/or keywords in the interestprofile 20. In an embodiment in which user identifiers and/or keywordsare ranked in relative importance within the interest profile 20, forexample based on frequency and/or recentness of such user identifiersand/or keywords within messages communicated through the email clientcomponent 12 or other communication application component 16, suchrankings may further be factored into the importance level determinedfor each message.

The mailbox size reduction performed by the mailbox replication adapter22 may result in the size of a mailbox being reduced by somepredetermined amount, in terms of bytes, number of messages, or someother size metric. The mailbox size reduction may be performed such thatthe resulting mailbox size is less than a size limit or quota associatedwith the mailbox being reduced. The mailbox size reduction performed bythe mailbox replication adapter 22 may be performed in response to auser setting that may be provided through a graphical user interfacegenerated by the email client component 12, and indicating that messagesautomatically determined to be unimportant are to be removed from one ormore of the message mailboxes 24 prior to those determined to beimportant.

The mailbox reduction performed by the mailbox replication adapter 22may include deleting some number of unimportant messages, or inarchiving such unimportant messages onto the email server system 30.Such archiving is shown by the message archiving operation 38 of FIG. 1.When a message is archived, it may be removed from a mailbox on in theclient system 10, and moved to the copies of messages 34 stored on theemail server system 30. The reduction of mailbox size performed by themailbox replication adapter 22 may also or alternatively operate tocontrol message mailbox replication 36, in which copies of messages 34on the email server system 30 are moved to the message mailboxes 24 onthe client system 10. In such an embodiment, the mailbox replicationadapter 22 reduces the size of a mailbox that is being replicated fromthe email server system 30 to the client system 10 by removing somenumber of unimportant messages from the mailbox. As shown in FIG. 1, thecopies of messages 34 may be stored in conjunction with an email serversoftware component 32.

While the software component operating to perform mailbox reduction isshown in FIG. 1 as the mailbox replication adapter component 22, thepresent invention is not limited to such an embodiment. Accordingly,those skilled in the art will recognize that any other specific type ofcomponent may be used in this regard, including but not limited toanother software task or thread separate from the email client component12. Similarly, while the interest profile 20 is described above as beingdetermined by the interest profile generator 18 in response to the emailclient component 12 and the other communication application 16, thepresent invention is also not limited to such an embodiment.Accordingly, an interest profile including identifiers of importantother users and/or keywords that are important to a local user may beautomatically generated in any appropriate manner for a given embodimentof the disclosed system.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating steps performed by an embodiment ofthe disclosed system. At step 40, the local user's personal interestprofile is determined. The interest profile determined at step 40includes important person identifiers, and/or some number of keywordsthat are important to the local user. At step 42, the disclosed systemreceives a request for mailbox size reduction by removal of unimportantmessages. Such a request may, for example, consist of an archive settingprovided through a user interface generated by an email applicationclient, selection of a button display object, or any other appropriateindication from the user.

At step 44, the disclosed system operates to determine messageimportance for each potentially removable message. Removable messagesmay, for example, consist of those messages stored in a mailbox forwhich request for reduction based on message importance was received atstep 42, and/or for which a current size is currently approaching, at,or exceeding, a mailbox size limit.

The determination of message importance may, for example, be performedat step 44 based on the following criteria:

a) The older a message is the less important it is.

b) The more recently that a message has been read/opened the moreimportant it is.

c) The more users associated with a message, such as authors, editors,recipients, or senders, that match identifiers of important users in thelocal user's interest profile, the more important a document is. In oneembodiment, in which the important users are ranked by importance withinthe interest profile, the higher the users associated with the messageare ranked in the interest profile the more important the message.

d) The more terms or phrases in the message that match keywords in theinterest profile, the more important a document is. In one embodiment,in which keywords are ranked by importance within the interest profile,the higher the term or phrases found in the message are ranked in theinterest profile the more important the message.

The above criteria may be themselves be ranked in importance. Forexample, the time since a message has been read or opened may be themost important criteria in determining message importance, followed bythe number of matches with important person identifiers in the interestprofile. Next in importance could be the number of matches between termsor phrases in the message with keywords in the interest profile. The ageof the message may be considered a less important criteria than theothers. In one embodiment, messages are considered potentially removableonly in the case where they exceed a predetermined message size. Forexample, messages may be considered removable only in the event thatthey exceed five kilobytes (5 KB) in size.

At step 46, the disclosed system removes relatively unimportant messagesfrom one more mailboxes on the client system in order to meet sizereduction goals as defined by the request received at step 42, or aspredetermined by mailbox size limits. The messages removed may bedeleted, or archived by being moved to a remote server system.

It should be noted that the disclosed mailbox size reduction techniquesmay be embodied such that they are responsive to replication usersettings providing indication that unimportant messages are not to bereplicated onto the client. However, it should further be noted that thedisclosed mailbox size reduction may be alternatively or additionallyembodied as responsive to archive user settings indicating thatunimportant messages are to be archived prior to important messages.

For example, FIG. 3 shows a graphical user interface display window 48allowing a user to provide message mailbox replication settings. In theexample of FIG. 3, the user can indicate, by checking associated boxes,a number of criteria 50 for removing messages from the mailbox replica.The criteria 50 may include settings that allow removal of messages fromthe replicated mailbox based on their relative unimportance, determinedin response to the user's personal interest profile. For example, thecriteria 50 allow the user to select a user setting that removesunimportant messages not modified in 90 days. Another user settingresults in removal of unimportant messages in the event that the mailboxexceeds a predetermined maximum size. Various other removal criteria maybe included in the criteria 50, also based on importance determinationsfor the messages in the corresponding mailbox.

The message retrieval criteria 52 enable the user to indicate usersettings that control which messages are included in a subset ofpossible messages for replicating to the client computer system. Thecriteria 52 may include settings that allow filtering of replicatedmessages based on their relative unimportance, determined in response tothe user's personal interest profile. For example, the criteria 52 allowa user to select a user setting that retrieves messages received fromimportant users, as indicated by the user's personal interest profile.Another user setting results in retrieval of messages matching keywordsin the user's personal interest profile. Various other retrievalcriteria may be included in the criteria 52, also based on importancedeterminations for messages in the corresponding mailbox.

FIG. 4 shows a graphical user interface display window 60 allowing auser to provide mailbox archive settings. In the example of FIG. 4, theuser can indicate, by adding, editing and deleting operations, a numberof user settings 64 for archiving messages from a mailbox. The usersettings 64 may allow for archiving of messages from the mailbox basedon their relative unimportance, determined in response to the user'spersonal interest profile. For example, the currently selected “Defaultfor Last Modified” user setting is described in the box 66 as operatingto copy messages from the mailbox if they are not modified in 365 days,and then deleting the messages from the mailbox. Other archive settingsbased on message importance determined in response to the user'spersonal interest profile are also possible.

In another aspect, an alternative embodiment of the disclosed system mayoperate to provide a graphical user interface dialog box upon detectionof the fact that a mailbox size has exceeded its maximum permitted size.Such an interface window would announce to the user that some number ofunimportant messages, determined based on the contents of the user'spersonal interest profile, and that are older than some time period(e.g. 90 days), will be deleted.

Additionally, the disclosed system may be embodied to provide useraccess to the personal interest profile itself, so that the user canread and/or edit its contents. Beyond identifiers of important personsand keywords, other importance attributes may be added to the personalinterest profile. Such importance attributes may, for example, includeindications that:

i) messages that were never read are to be considered less importantthan those that have been read,

ii) messages that were never responded to are to be considered lessimportant than those that have been responded to,

iii) messages opened some “n” number of times or more should never bedeleted,

iv) messages that were opened and quickly closed should be consideredless important than messages that were kept open for some minimum timeperiod.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that the disclosed systemprovides many advantages over previous systems. In addition to overallspace savings through mailbox size reduction, performance of the emailclient is also improved. Specifically, queries, index updates, and otheroperations can be performed faster on reduced size mailboxes, sincethere is less data to be covered.

FIGS. 1-2 are block diagram and flowchart illustrations of methods,apparatus(s) and computer program products according to an embodiment ofthe invention. It will be understood that each block of FIGS. 1-2, andcombinations of these blocks, can be implemented by computer programinstructions. These computer program instructions may be loaded onto acomputer or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce amachine, such that the instructions which execute on the computer orother programmable data processing apparatus create means forimplementing the functions specified in the block or blocks. Thesecomputer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readablememory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processingapparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructionsstored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufactureincluding instruction means which implement the function specified inthe block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatusto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computeror other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implementedprocess such that the instructions which execute on the computer orother programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing thefunctions specified in the block or blocks.

Those skilled in the art should readily appreciate that programsdefining the functions of the present invention can be delivered to acomputer in many forms; including, but not limited to: (a) informationpermanently stored on non-writable storage media (e.g. read only memorydevices within a computer such as ROM or CD-ROM disks readable by acomputer I/O attachment); (b) information alterably stored on writablestorage media (e.g. floppy disks and hard drives); or (c) informationconveyed to a computer through communication media for example usingwireless, baseband signaling or broadband signaling techniques,including carrier wave signaling techniques, such as over computer ortelephone networks via a modem.

While the invention is described through the above exemplaryembodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the artthat modification to and variation of the illustrated embodiments may bemade without departing from the inventive concepts herein disclosed.Moreover, while the preferred embodiments are described in connectionwith various illustrative program command structures, one skilled in theart will recognize that they may be embodied using a variety of specificcommand structures.

1. A method for reducing the size of a local electronic mail mailbox,comprising: automatically determining a user interest profile for alocal user of a client computer system; determining, by a replicationcomponent in said client computer system, an importance level for eachof a plurality of electronic mail messages stored in at least onemailbox structure on said client computer system, wherein saiddetermining said importance level includes determining a last time saidlocal user of said client computer system opened each of said pluralityof electronic mail messages, wherein said importance level determinedfor each one of said electronic mail messages is based, at least inpart, on the contents of said user interest profile and said last timesaid local user of said client computer system opened each one of saidelectronic mail messages, and wherein said determining said importancelevel of each of said electronic mail messages includes calculatinghigher importance levels for those ones of said electronic mail messageslast opened more recently by said local user of said client computerthan other ones of said electronic mail messages; determining, by saidreplication component in said client computer system responsive to saidimportance levels determined for each of said plurality of electronicmail messages, an unimportant subset of said plurality of electronicmail messages, wherein each electronic mail message in said unimportantsubset of said plurality of electronic mail messages has an associatedimportance level less than any importance level associated with those ofsaid plurality of electronic mail messages not in said unimportantsubset; and reducing a size of said mailbox structure by saidreplication component in said client computer system removing saidunimportant subset of said plurality of electronic mail messages fromsaid mailbox structure on said client computer system, and wherein saidreducing further includes archiving said unimportant subset of saidplurality of electronic mail messages to storage on a remote serversystem, such that said size of said mailbox structure is reduced to asize limit associated with said mailbox structure.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein said automatically determining said user interestprofile comprises automatically determining at least one important otheruser and storing an identifier of said important other user in said userinterest profile, and wherein said determining said importance level ofeach of said electronic mail messages includes calculating a higherimportance level for a given message in the event that a user identifierassociated with said given message matches said identifier of saidimportant other user stored in said user interest profile.
 3. The methodof claim 2, wherein said user identifier associated with said givenmessage identifies a sender of said given message.
 4. The method ofclaim 2, wherein said identifier of said user associated with said givenmessage identifies a receiver of said given message.
 5. The method ofclaim 2, wherein said automatically determining said at least oneimportant other user comprises monitoring at least one communicationapplication on said client computer system to automatically determinethe identity of at least one other user with whom said local user hasrecently communicated.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein saidautomatically determining said user interest profile comprisesdetermining at least one keyword important to said local user, andstoring said keyword in said user interest profile, and wherein saiddetermining said importance level of each of said electronic mailmessages includes calculating a higher importance level for a givenmessage in the event that said given message includes said keyword. 7.The method of claim 6, wherein said importance level of said givenmessage is higher in the event that said keyword is present in a subjectline of said given message than in the even that said keyword is presentin a body of said given message.
 8. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising obtaining a replication setting from said local userindicating that said size of said mailbox structure on said clientcomputer system is to be reduced by said removing of said unimportantsubset of said plurality of electronic mail messages contained in saidmailbox structure.
 9. A system including at least one processor and acomputer readable memory in a client computer system, said computerreadable memory having program code stored thereon for reducing the sizeof a local electronic mail mailbox, said program code comprising:program code for automatically determining a user interest profile for alocal user of a client computer system; program code for determining, bya replication component in said client computer system, an importancelevel for each of a plurality of electronic mail messages stored in atleast one mailbox structure on said client computer system, wherein saiddetermining said importance level includes determining a last time saidlocal user of said client computer system opened each of said pluralityof electronic mail messages, wherein said importance level determinedfor each one of said electronic mail messages is based, at least inpart, on the contents of said user interest profile and said last timesaid local user of said client computer system opened each one of saidelectronic mail messages, and wherein said determining said importancelevel of each of said electronic mail messages includes calculatinghigher importance levels for those ones of said electronic mail messageslast opened more recently by said local user of said client computerthan other ones of said electronic mail messages; program code fordetermining, by said replication component in said client computersystem responsive to said importance levels determined for each of saidplurality of electronic mail messages, an unimportant subset of saidplurality of electronic mail messages, wherein each electronic mailmessage in said unimportant subset of said plurality of electronic mailmessages has an associated importance level less than any importancelevel associated with those of said plurality of electronic mailmessages not in said unimportant subset; and program code for reducing asize of said mailbox structure by said replication component in saidclient computer system removing said unimportant subset of saidplurality of electronic mail messages from said mailbox structure onsaid client computer system, and wherein said reducing further includesarchiving said unimportant subset of said plurality of electronic mailmessages to storage on a remote server system, such that said size ofsaid mailbox structure is reduced to a size limit associated with saidmailbox structure.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein said program codefor automatically determining said user interest profile comprisesprogram code for automatically determining at least one important otheruser and storing an identifier of said important other user in said userinterest profile, and wherein said program code for determining saidimportance level of each of said electronic mail messages includesprogram code for calculating a higher importance level for a givenmessage in the event that a user identifier associated with said givenmessage matches said identifier of said important other user stored insaid user interest profile.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein saiduser identifier associated with said given message identifies a senderof said given message.
 12. The system of claim 10, wherein saididentifier of said user associated with said given message identifies areceiver of said given message.
 13. The system of claim 10, wherein saidprogram code for automatically determining said at least one importantother user comprises program code for monitoring at least onecommunication application on said client computer system toautomatically determine the identity of at least one other user withwhom said local user has recently communicated.
 14. The system of claim9, wherein said program code for automatically determining said userinterest profile comprises program code for determining at least onekeyword important to said local user, and storing said keyword in saiduser interest profile, and wherein said program code for determiningsaid importance level of each of said electronic mail messages includesprogram code for calculating a higher importance level for a givenmessage in the event that said given message includes said keyword. 15.The system of claim 14, wherein said importance level of said givenmessage is higher in the event that said keyword is present in a subjectline of said given message than in the even that said keyword is presentin a body of said given message.
 16. The system of claim 9, said programcode further comprising program code for obtaining a replication settingfrom said local user indicating that said size of said mailbox structureon said client computer system is to be reduced by said removing of saidunimportant subset of said plurality of electronic mail messagescontained in said mailbox structure.
 17. A computer program productincluding a computer readable memory, said computer readable memoryhaving program code stored thereon for reducing, by a client computersystem, the size of a local electronic mail mailbox, said program codecomprising: program code for automatically determining a user interestprofile for a local user of a client computer system; program code fordetermining, by a replication component in said client computer system,an importance level for each of a plurality of electronic mail messagesstored in at least one mailbox structure on said client computer system,wherein said determining said importance level includes determining alast time said local user of said client computer system opened each ofsaid plurality of electronic mail messages, wherein said importancelevel determined for each one of said electronic mail messages is based,at least in part, on the contents of said user interest profile and saidlast time said local user of said client computer system opened each oneof said electronic mail messages, and wherein said determining saidimportance level of each of said electronic mail messages includescalculating higher importance levels for those ones of said electronicmail messages last opened more recently by said local user of saidclient computer than other ones of said electronic mail messages;program code for determining, by said replication component in saidclient computer system responsive to said importance levels determinedfor each of said plurality of electronic mail messages, an unimportantsubset of said plurality of electronic mail messages, wherein eachelectronic mail message in said unimportant subset of said plurality ofelectronic mail messages has an associated importance level less thanany importance level associated with those of said plurality ofelectronic mail messages not in said unimportant subset; and programcode for reducing a size of said mailbox structure by said replicationcomponent in said client computer system removing said unimportantsubset of said plurality of electronic mail messages from said mailboxstructure on said client computer system, and wherein said reducingfurther includes archiving said unimportant subset of said plurality ofelectronic mail messages to storage on a remote server system, such thatsaid size of said mailbox structure is reduced to a size limitassociated with said mailbox structure.